


T is for Tears

by blue_eyesgirl_fic



Category: Bleach
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_eyesgirl_fic/pseuds/blue_eyesgirl_fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone thought Hisagi Shuuhei was strong but all he could ever think of that was that he was always being saved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	T is for Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: live_with_love @ LJ  
> Disclaimer: Bleach does not belong to me but Kubo Tite  
> Spoilers: Spoilers for the FKT arc and slight AU regarding the gaps Kubo left when summing up the end of the arc.  
> Author's Notes: This is for the [Alphabet meme](http://blue-eyesgirl.livejournal.com/35130.html). This is for xglimpsex @ LJ.  
> Surprisingly this ended up being very introspective and it was quite... exctiting to get inside Shuuhei's head like this (it's a very confusing place!) and one of the pieces I have planned for my bingo card is possibly going to end up a little like this so hopefully I pulled it off here.  
> Italics is flashback and single quotes is conversation between zanpakutou and wielder.

He’d always been asked why he’d stayed. Why hadn’t he run with the first years? The answer that he was protecting his kouhai always fell on deaf ears. Even some of his fellow sixth rounders, about to graduate and join the Gotei, didn’t seem to understand the concept of protecting people for the sake of protecting them. All he got for his bravery were those scars, they told him; what was worth that? His kouhai were, yet there was the niggling thought that he had been trying to throw his life away because Aoga and Kanisawa…

At least his classmates hadn’t stood there and watched him protect them because in the end he’d needed saving again. He wasn’t strong enough yet. He didn’t think he ever would be. 

 

He hated it when anyone told him how strong he was – he knew he was living a lie. Or at least to begin with he had. To begin with he knew at the back of his mind that he shouldn’t accept Tousen-taichou’s words. He shouldn’t simply accept his fear so easily and he somehow felt that Muguruma-taichou would be spinning in his grave should he know the kid he’d saved had ended up scared of his own zanpakutou, his own power. And then an even quieter voice told him that that man was dead – why should he chase the image of a man whose own philosophy, whatever it may have been, had obviously failed him. He hated that voice even more.

And yet he’d accepted it, let the words work their way into his very existence in the same way he had Tousen-taichou’s philosophy on fear. And he forgot. He forgot where his own thoughts began and where Tousen-taichou’s started; it was safe to say that whatever philosophy he had had been merged with and overwritten by the philosophy of fear. Muguruma-taichou had become more and more distant from him, yes there was the same tattoo etched on his face and yes it reminded him everyday that he was alive because of him but so did his scars. They reminded him he was alive because of Aizen-taichou and Ichimaru-taichou, because of three stubborn first years. More and more, they only served to remind him how weak he was. People thought of him as strong and confident but little by little it became a front, a mask, that he put on. 

 

Everything crumbled on top of the Sougyoku Hill but no-one noticed. Everyone thought he was coping. He wasn’t drinking so much alcohol that it would make even Kyouraku-taichou sick - he didn’t want to think what it was doing to his kouhai’s liver. He wasn’t finding the will to live in 4th like Hinamori. He was holed up in his office doing paperwork and editing and if anyone asked well Tousen-taichou had done most of the paperwork himself so he was just adjusting to the workload. 

And no-one reached out. He didn’t blame them; everyone was rebuilding the Gotei, getting stronger to face the battles ahead, turning betrayal into anger, turning betrayal into duty. He turned betrayal into determination to bring his captain back. And whilst anger can consume and duty can falter, determination to show someone the truth is the most deadly of all. But he didn’t see this. No-one saw it. 

 

He protected his pillar. He didn’t need saving and just for a moment he thought that maybe he truly had become stronger. He shouldn’t have been so cocky. That monster smashed through them, even using his shikai… not even that was good enough and they’d all had to be saved again. He couldn’t repay his kouhai that debt yet. 

Instead he found himself more in debt to his blonde kouhai as Kira took it upon himself to heal them all. To protect them. He managed a deprecating smile to himself; Kira had surpassed him a long time ago – he hadn’t even noticed. To be strong enough to tell Komamura-taichou to leave. "It’ll all be meaningless if we survive and everyone else gets killed.". It was looking like they would all die – he was glad to say that death wasn’t something he feared. He would’ve laughed at himself had he the strength; scared of his own sword but not death - 

‘Great going there, aibou.’ Kazeshini snarked. 

‘Yeah, I know, I –‘

“Hold it.” He opened his eyes at the unfamiliar voice. “Been awhile ain’t it, Aizen?” 

He knew that face… hadn’t he seen it in that book hidden away in the library. Yeah because that day he’d found – His eyes stopped on a large, muscled man with silver hair. It was different, Muguruma-taichou was different, but a century would do that. Regret crushed down on him; why had he listened to that voice? But no, no there was no time for that. He had to be out there. He still had to open Tousen-taichou’s eyes, he had to prove he was worth saving, he had to get stronger and perhaps pushing his limits would do that.

 

He should’ve seen the mistake in his determination sooner; crashing to the ground from a rooftop was bad enough without the fragile pieces of himself that he’d pulled together over too short a time shattering once more and threatening to remain that way. He lay in the rubble. That wasn’t the Tousen-taichou he knew, Kazeshini protested he’d never known the fucker. Tears fell from both eyes – he’d always wondered if the scarred side of his face could manage that once healed properly and the last time he’d cried had been with bandages concealing the wound – as emotions swirled. Regret and anguish and finally betrayal. Not the determination he had turned it into but betrayal that his captain had left, that all his preparation was for nothing.

 

Tousen-taichou would have dodged. Even now with Kazeshini buried inside his former captain, even as he spoke the release command for his shikai with intent to kill the monster he was stood on, the monster his captain had become – he wished Tousen-taichou had. He wished his realisations were wrong. He wished he was blind and had mistaken the truth.

 

“Our relationship up until now was only temporary.”

“That one day we would fight.”

“Hisagi must have felt the same as well…”

Had he…? Yeah… he had, he knew it from the day he heard those words that eventually he’d catch up and realise he shouldn’t have listened and yet he couldn’t begrudge the man. Man because he’d changed back to the Tousen-taichou he knew – physically. And it didn’t help.

“…Hisagi, come closer.” He had hesitated – was this a trick?- but maybe if he hadn’t then –

 

He hadn’t moved from his spot. Kneeling, slumped, crying over the body of his former captain, everything, everyone around him forgotten. He couldn’t quite figure out if he’d stopped making those anguished cries of ‘taichou’ but he couldn’t hear them anymore. So he guessed he had.

Tears wracked his body, not just with remorse but injustice, pain. He would never know if Tousen-taichou had genuinely been reaching for him. Had he really wanted to see him properly? Had he wanted to get revenge and blow him to pieces? 

 

Unsurprisingly, he missed the sound of slightly unstable footsteps as boots met rubble and the person climbed towards him. He didn’t so much as jump when a hand came down to rest on his shoulder. He thought it was because he didn’t care anymore, if it was an enemy they could kill him as they liked. Kazeshini decided for them later that it was because they knew. 

“Hey.”

_”What’re ya crying for, kid?”_

“You’re alive.”

_”Be happy.”_

“Smile.”

_”No good?”_

“Stand up, kid.” The hand shifted to curl around his bicep and tug him up – that too slotted into place in his memory. His eyes didn’t leave his former captain and he didn’t notice the awkwardness that the near identical height between him and Muguruma-taichou caused. 

_”What’s your name?”_

“Shuuhei… wasn’t it?” 

He lifted his head and turned compliantly to look at the man holding him up. “Yeah.” he murmured softly, beginning to find his voice. 

“Ya hurt?” 

He shook his head slightly and before he knew which way was up he was being carried away on the older shinigami’s back. “Bullshit, kid.”

“I know, Muguruma-taichou.” he whispered into the older man’s back.


End file.
